Calm And Centered AF

Calm the Chaos: 5 Fun Hacks to Meditate with a Busy Mind

• Cheryl J Reynolds • Episode 3

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Can meditation truly calm even the busiest of minds?

Discover how to bring serenity into your life as she shares five practical meditation techniques specifically designed for those with a squirrel mind. 

You'll learn the importance of slow and consistent practice with shorter, more frequent sessions

Learn how to utilize the peripheral vision exercise to engage both sides of your brain.
 
Embrace the art of observing thoughts without judgment, allowing your mind's natural inclination to think while finding peace through passive awareness.

These methods aim to make meditation accessible and enjoyable, even for those overwhelmed by life’s demands.

Transform your meditation experience by creating a sacred space that signals to your brain it's time to relax and meditate.

In this podcast you'll receive five inspiring tips to establish your dedicated meditation spot, reinforcing consistency as a key to success.

This episode promises to help you make meditation a regular, enjoyable part of your routine while offering support and a sense of belonging through a communal journey towards calmness and centeredness.

Bad Mood Buster- 5-minute technique to release overwhelm and anxiety and you don't need to meditate to do it. 

Cheryl here, I'd love to hear from you, text me here!

If you find yourself overthinking like a distracted squirrel and your overwhelm is increasing then take a look at Frazzed To Focused.

This course is designed to work with your intuitive overthinking mind.

Let's get you feeling Zen AF

Frazzled To Focused Course

I appreciate you and the time you take to listen every week. Thank you.

When you have a minute, go on over to Facebook and join my Community. I provide a safe place to talk and share, plus I hold weekly live videos. ( It's free)

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Speaker 1:

Are all those shiny objects that are floating around in your head becoming a distraction for you to meditate? Well, I got you covered, my friend. I have five ways to meditate with a busy mind. Let's get started. Welcome to Calm and Scented AF, the podcast that guides you back to your path with a touch of serenity and a dash of sass. I'm C Reynolds, your hosting guide, and I welcome you. This pod is for my intuitive souls, who veered, off course, somewhere between overwhelm and anxiety. But not to worry, I got you, my friend. It's time to step up and bask in your brilliance, where you'll feel lighter, more relaxed and fully in control. And I'm going to help you do that by kicking overwhelm to the curb, ditching your anxiety, and help you stop chasing those shiny objects like a distracted squirrel. Here you'll find quick, actionable steps, insightful ideas, humor to light the way and a whole lot of Zen. So grab your coffee and buckle up buttercup. It's time to get you feeling calm and centered AF. Are you in a cranky mood, annoyed as hell, frustrated, maybe overwhelmed? I have for you the five minute mood buster that is going to change your mood, and you don't even have to meditate. Soon you're going to feel calmer and a little more settled, and whatever you were worrying about or annoyed about or angry about is going to dissipate. Grab this free audio right now. Go on over to calmandcenteredafcom. Forward slash mood.

Speaker 1:

You sit down on your cushion, you're getting ready to meditate and then your nose starts to itch, your leg gets numb, you start to fidget and maybe you fart, and then you get the giggles and before you know it, you fall off your cushion and you're in a laughing fit. Okay, maybe not you, but I have laughed my ass off the cushion once or twice. This is truth, my friend. Meditating is not as hard as we make it out to be. It can be kind of fun and you don't have to sit like a Buddha on a cushion to get the effects of meditation. Meditating is much easier than that. If you overthink or you get anxious, meditating is what you need to start to practice. If you overthink or you get anxious, meditating is what you need to start to practice. It has so many benefits for you and it helps to calm the mind and it puts things in true perspective, and it also gives you emotional resistance. Your reaction time is slower, you're not as bothered by things, you have more time to process information, it calms your nerves, it lowers your blood pressure.

Speaker 1:

I can go on and on, and we will go on and on, and we will go on and on about the effects of meditating in another episode, but in this particular episode I want to talk about five simple ways to meditate with a busy mind. So let's take the mystery out of this. If you have ever doubted your ability to meditate or do so, I want you to realize that you already do. You already moved into that exact same type of brain activity. When you are daydreaming, when you are focused on something very important and nothing else around the room matters, that moment, right before you wake up, when you're in that beautiful state of waking up out of sleep, you're hoping the alarm doesn't go off again and of course it always does. But anywho, that is also a meditative state.

Speaker 1:

So how do we meditate with a busy mind? The first one is to be slow and consistent in your practice. Be patient with yourself in your practice. Be patient with yourself. Going slow helps you to develop new routines and habits and your brain likes habits. And it's better to start off slow and meditate for one minute three times a day than to fail at a one-time 20 minute meditation, because trying to cushion surf for 20 minutes when you're worried about your Facebook feed is not going to help you at all. All right, we're going to keep this simple.

Speaker 1:

So, number two this is a technique that is really good to start off with, especially if you're spinning in your busy mind and you can't seem to sit still to focus. I want you to do an exercise called peripheral vision, and it's basically what the name is is expanding your peripheral vision. So what you do is you stare at something in front of you and then you're going to expand your peripheral vision up as high as you can and down as low as you can go, and outwards and around you. And as you expand your peripheral vision, you're tapping into the alpha waves waves and you're also using two sides of your brain, and even though you're doing a spacious exercise, it actually helps to calm the mind down and this can prepare you to meditate. It's very effective. It works very well. I suggest doing that exercise and then doing it again. I suggest doing that exercise and then doing it again if you need to, and then you can get into the meditative process.

Speaker 1:

Number three sit back, watch and listen. If you try to change or stop your thoughts, your mind will only think more. No-transcript everybody, many people think that in order to meditate you have to clear your mind completely of thoughts, and that is so untrue. Your mind thinks that is what it does, it's supposed to think and you're going to have these stream of thoughts that are going through your mind and if you fight them it's just going to frustrate the hell out of you. Don't even bother, just notice these thoughts. Let your mind think as it does and do nothing.

Speaker 1:

You may start to notice more thoughts going through your mind when you meditate, because now you're noticing them where before you may have been doing something, where they're in the background. But as you notice more, the more you meditate, this will start to decrease over time and once you get the hang of this, thinking becomes almost a form of entertaining, because you start to decrease over time. And once you get the hang of this, thinking becomes almost a form of entertaining because you start to see all the crazy thoughts that are going through your head. Where did a thought of being in high school back in the 80s come from? Out of nowhere, and then in some ways it makes you giggle because they make no sense. It's just a stream of consciousness. Besides, when you watch your thoughts and you follow them, you start to realize and see them for what they are. These thoughts sometimes have nothing to do with you, nothing to do with what's going on in your life, and they're there because they're supposed to be there. It's what the brain does to process information. What is good about noticing your thoughts is, as you notice them and the more you notice them, you'll start to see there are pauses in space between the thoughts. There are less thoughts, less intrusive ideas popping in your head, and that's when you start to notice the benefits of meditation. Number four is realizing that you don't have to sit on a cushion to meditate.

Speaker 1:

Meditating can be highly effective as a moving exercise, exercises like yoga or tai chi, even playing music, playing a guitar. Some people find writing to be highly meditative. Some people find writing to be highly meditative. Anything that puts you in that zone where time seems to fly and you feel connected to your heart and headspace is really a form of meditation. These may not be meditative in the usual sense, but it still changes the brain. In the same way. It gets those alpha waves kicking up, which, of course, as you know, brings you that sense of calm. Anything you do that is creative is also very meditative. Creative endeavors are the best way to connect with our right side of our brain. The right side of our brain is our intuitive, creative and non-analytical side, so that's the side that we are tapping into when we meditate.

Speaker 1:

For me, I love guided meditations. I find them highly relaxing. I have something to focus on, which is the voice of the meditator, and I find that it just allows my brain to rest. My body begins to relax much easier. So if you really have a hard time meditating, guided meditation may be right for you. And don't worry if you fall asleep, you're just probably tired, perfectly fine.

Speaker 1:

The last tip here, number five, is I suggest creating a special place for you to meditate, a sacred space when you first begin. Find one place that you go to meditate, whether it's in a certain chair in your kitchen, outside, it could be in your car, but this will help to dig in this new habit of meditating, because when you go into that space, your mind starts to recognize it as okay, it's time to meditate, and it starts to change your brain. It digs in that habit, so your brain prepares for it and it gives you a little boost. All right, so those are my five tips. I hope that they've given you some inspiration and maybe something to try. Please let me know how you're doing with your meditating.

Speaker 1:

I love hearing your feedback. I love hearing your stories, so by all means, reach out, even say hello, and I do hope that I get to talk to you on the next episode. I thank you for listening all the way to the end of this podcast. I appreciate you more than you know. For more information and access to show notes, go on over to calmandcenteredaf. com, and if you're looking to work with me one-to-one, you can find the information there as well. Remember, once you clear your mind and become calm and centered, you can create the life you desire, and I'm here to support you in doing just that.